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Raincoast Creative Salon is the online home for what I love: creativity, art, design, and travel. Take a look at my photography portfolio. I also share behind-the-scenes peeks of my creative side projects.

My blog has three categories: create, where I photograph, cook, make art and write about the creative process; travel is about my travels, both local and afar; and inspire - photographers, artists, & designers who inspire my work, and interviews with artists, photographers, & creative couples.

You know already that we love to travel. And that we have been to NYC many, many times. At six the girl has already been five times (benefit of having parents who love theatre and museums)! So when we moved back to the west coast after 10 years we decided that we wanted to get to know LA at least as well as NYC. The man and I have been before - I even went to grad school in Santa Barbara - but we want to REALLY know LA. Our LA. And our LA includes museums - here is our visit to LACMA, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

At the entrance is an installation called Urban Light with 202 vintage LA street lamps. The artist bought one at the Rose Bowl flea market and then became obsessed with collecting them. They are lit at night (solar powered of course - it is California).

The size and scope of this steel sculpture are amazing. The room is hundreds of feet long and wide to accommodate it.

We were very lucky as one of the exhibits is the first major study of California mid-century modern design. With over 300 objects from ceramics to an automobile, it is worth attending.

The girl is watching the Debbie Sussman video that is below this photo. Sussman worked with Ray and Charles Eames. If you saw the American Masters PBS episode on the Eames', you will recognize her. How could you not remember her with those amazing glasses! (You can only watch the entire show via this link if you are in the US).

The childrens' area is surprisingly quite small considering the size of the museum. I wasn't too concerned as the girl is quite at home in galleries and museums. Like when we saw the Herzog exhibit, she was busy with the man's blackberry taking photos.

But it does have space for artmaking. And the staff were incredibly friendly.

The other exhibit that we viewed was called "In Wonderland: The Surrealist Adventures of Women Artists in Mexico and the United States". One of the quotes on the wall of the gallery spoke to how women artists throughout history have been characterized as crazy because they made their creative work a priority. How brave they were. And how much of a challenge it still can be to balance creative work and the rest of our lives. The more things change and all that...

So that was my visit to LACMA last week. We barely scratched the surface - it'll take a few more visits to get through the entire collection. And to start to get to know smaller galleries too.

More on the rest of our trip soon. Disney. And shopping - clothes and furniture. Restaurants too. We had our moments of panic because we want to see and do and know everything right.now. But that'll come.